This screenshot shows the Facebook back for Save Our UI Center for Human Rights at www.facebook.com/savetheuichr. The group is holding a protest at 3 p.m. today on the University of Iowa Pentacrest.

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Press-Citizen Editorial Board
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Members of the University of Iowa community will be gathering at 3 p.m. today in the Pentacrest to protest the decision of the UI president and provost to close the 13-year-old UI Center for Human Rights.

It's ironic that back in 1999 - around the same time the Center for Human Rights was being started up - administrators from the University of Iowa College of Liberal Arts almost succeeded in closing another of the university's world-renown assets: the International Writing Program.

The dean at the time, Linda Maxson, said the three-decade-old program had been placed on hiatus in May 1999 ...